ABSTRACT
By the mid--1960s, after six years of Guided Democracy and theatrical mass mobilisation, Indonesian politics had become highly polarised, left and right. The bitter ideological conflict was most clearly manifested in the rivalry and hostility between the PKI and the right-wing army leadership. In this politically tense atmosphere, on 30 September 1965, a group of leftist military officers launched an coup attempt, apparently aimed at replacing the army leadership with officers more sympathetic to Sukarno and the PKI. The coup, in which six top army generals were killed, was badly planned and executed, however, and was quickly defeated by troops led by Major-General Suharto, the commander of the Army’s Strategic Reserve, Kostrad (Komando Strategis Angkatan Darat).1 The abortive coup provided Suharto and the army with a pretext to eliminate the PKI, and they initiated a concerted campaign against the party, in which the PKI was portrayed as treacherous and morally corrupt.2
